A glass castle shatters as easily as a glass house—all it takes is one stone.
Prince Edward has known this all of his life, and taken staunch measures to ensure he doesn’t give the public any reason to pick up their rocks. Or torches. Or pitchforks. As a twenty-two-year-old in line to ascend the throne, he lives more like a cloistered monk than his college-aged peers. Restraint is the tone of his life, resilience the theme.
That is, until he meets a young woman who couldn’t care less about his title—unless she’s poking fun at it. Charlotte Everly grew up a stone’s throw away from the royal family’s summer house, but her life was, and is, entirely different from the prince’s.
They clash at each turn, disagree on every topic, and bear a general contempt for one another. Until . . .
One night, accompanied by one proposal, leads to one lapse in judgment . . .
Results in a nationwide scandal neither of them will escape.
Excerpt
I grew up next door to the royal family’s summer house on the banks of Lake Genovese.
Not because my family was rich and could afford one of the sprawling estates near Valmont Manor, or due to some trace of royal blood in our heritage.
I grew up next door to Valmont because my father was the groundskeeper, our humble quarters tucked into the trees on the south end of the grounds. I grew up surrounded by privilege and wealth, but my parents had cocooned me—as overprotective types with only one child did. I never interacted with the royal family or any of the distant relations who flocked to Valmont in the summer months for the legendary parties Her Royal Highness put on. My dad left his groundskeeper position the fall I turned ten in favor of a job in the north as a park manager.
It had been a decade since I left Valmont as the groundskeeper’s daughter, but little, if anything, had changed. Royal families were like that; change came gradually, if at all, to everything from their estates to their hemlines.
“Do you understand your position here?” The prune-faced woman, in her matronly tweed suit, came to an abrupt stop in the grand foyer, interrupting my nostalgia.
I slipped on the same competent expression I’d worn the day I’d been interviewed for the job. “I understand.”
“You’re quite young. The last off-season house manager was twice your age.” The woman, Mrs. Hutchinson, appraised me, the corners of her mouth turning down.
“What I lack in age, I make up for in work ethic and energy,” I said, checking my shoes to see if I’d somehow managed to step in horse dung when I passed through the Queen Angeline Ballroom, as Mrs. Hutchison’s brow suggested. “And I spent the first ten years of my life on Valmont’s grounds. I know my way around the place.”
“Your father was the groundskeeper, which means he wouldn’t have stepped foot in the castle.”
“Correct.” I made sure to smile as I said it, not wanting to anger the person who was technically my boss. Thank the gods she’d be joining the royal family back at their primary estate, Stratford Castle, as soon as she left here.
“There’s a great deal of difference between keeping the lawn green and shrubs shaped and winterizing sixty-two rooms while keeping an eye out for any signs of snow or ice damage.”
I held my smile and reminded myself she probably didn’t mean to talk down to me. “I’m a quick learner.”
Mrs. Hutchinson’s eyes suggested We’ll see before she walked toward one of the side doors. “Prince Edward and you are the same age, right? Did your paths ever cross when you were growing up here?”
My nose scrunched up, since her back was to me. “He’s two years older, and no, our paths never crossed.”
Thankfully. Prince Edward was a pompous, lazy playboy whose smirk embodied everything that was wrong with society—entitlement and smugness.
“That’s too bad. He’s such a lovely fellow.”
“The loveliest,” I said flatly.
When we stopped at the door, she checked to make sure the giant black binder was still clutched in my arms. She’d assured me it would answer any question I might have about my responsibilities here, as well as detail every duty, from covering the furniture with sheets to setting the thermostats.
“Why did you decide to take the year off from Whitbridge?” she asked, slipping into her beige trench coat after checking the glum weather out the window. “It’s the most prestigious university in the country. Was the course work too rigorous?”
My hands slid into the front pockets of my overalls. “No. I scored top marks both my first and second year.” I wasn’t sure how much I should say. “I just needed a year to decide what I want to do with my life before I commit to another two, or ten, years of college.”
Mrs. Hutchinson chuckled, slipping on her leather gloves. “Doctors go to school for ten years, dear.”
“Not groundskeepers’ daughters?” I said, verbalizing her probable thoughts.
She waved me off as though I were making a bigger deal than necessary. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” I stated, because I did understand the way people viewed one another based on social standing and pedigree. My parents had never come right out and admitted it, but I knew my dad giving up his job as a royal groundskeeper had a lot to do with not wanting to raise me around such stunted, old-fashioned views.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it now.” Mrs. Hutchison gave me another look, one that suggested she wasn’t sure if Valmont would be reduced to ashes when she returned with the royal family at the start of summer.
Not that she had a lot of alternatives. There were never a lot of people to apply for a position like taking care of a massive estate in the off-season in one of the most isolated places in the country. A person could go weeks here in the dead of winter without seeing another living soul, animal included.
But I’d had my reasons for applying.
“If anything comes up, I can be reached on my cell day and night.” Mrs. Hutchinson stepped through the door, frowning at the gray, mottled sky.
“I’m sure everything will be exactly as you left it come June.”
She waited under the awning for the driver equipped with an umbrella to fend off the drizzle. “I’m hopeful it will be,” she said before she climbed into the back seat of the black Aston Martin.
There was a vehicle reserved for me to use while I was here, but it was not an Aston Martin. It was more like an old rumble-bucket truck that a person would sell turnips out of the back of.
Standing in the doorway of Valmont, I waved at the retreating car, saying farewell to any signs of life for at least a few good weeks. Time I could use to deconstruct the funk littering my brain and hopefully find my reset button. The one that would put me back to my original factory settings, the place before life, with all of its complexities and expectations, had shoved me off my intended course.
The magic place where I was me and knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.
With an excited squeal, I spun inside, locking the door to keep out the rest of the world. Alone at last.
The first thing I did was kick off my sneakers and throw my long hair into a ponytail. Then I slid through room after room, flipping on lights as I went, living out my childhood fantasy of dancing through every room I’d only seen from the outside looking in.
It wasn’t a brief task.
I managed to frolic my way through half of the rooms on the main floor before I gave myself a side-ache and declared my childhood fantasies fulfilled.
